1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a device, a method of manufacturing the same, an electro-optic device, and electronic equipment.
2. Background Art
Wiring used for electronic circuits or integrated circuits is manufactured, for example, by a photolithography method. In the photolithography method, the wiring is formed by applying photosensitive material called resist on a plate, on which a conductive film is applied in advance, developing by irradiating a circuit pattern, and etching the conductive film according to a resist pattern. The lithography method requires large scale equipment and complex processes such as a vacuum device, and the material usage efficiency is only several percent. Therefore, most of the material has to be put on the shelf, and hence it requires high manufacturing costs.
Alternatively, there is proposed a wiring pattern forming process using a liquid drop discharging process, which is so-called an inkjet method, in which liquid material is discharged in the form of liquid drops from a liquid drop discharging head (For example, see U.S. Pat. No. 5,132,248). In this process, ink for a wiring pattern, which is functional liquid containing conductive fine particles such as metal particles disposed therein is applied directly to the plate as a pattern, which is converted into the conductive film pattern by subsequently performing heat treatment or laser irradiation. This process has advantages such that photolithography is no longer necessary, and hence the process is significantly simplified, and at the same time, the amount of material to be used may be reduced.
However, there are problem as shown below.
According to ink application by the inkjet method, it is possible to discharge and apply liquid drops on the order of micrometers in diameter at a high resolution. However, fine liquid applied on the plate dries very quickly and, in addition, it generally starts drying quickly at the ends (upper end, lower end, right end, and left end) of the applied area on the plate since the partial pressure of the solvent molecules (concentration of solvent vapor) vaporized from the fine liquid at these regions is low.
The difference of drying time of the liquid member applied on the plate as described above causes variations in film thickness of conductive film wiring, and variations in film thickness may cause a defect of unevenness of electric property, such as conductivity.
In view of such circumstances, it is an object of the present invention to provide a device, a method of manufacturing the same, an electro-optic device, and electronic equipment, which do not cause variations in film thickness and can solve unevenness of the electric property.